In the World of the High Tech Redneck, the Graybeard is the old guy who earned his gray by making all the mistakes, and then tries to keep the young 'uns from repeating them. Silicon Graybeard is my term for an old hardware engineer; a circuit designer. Here are mental droppings from a newly retired radio engineer running from tech news to economics; from firearms to the world at large; from radio to home machine shops and making all kinds of stuff.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Flypaper Laws

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power
to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals,
one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it
becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.- Ayn Rand

Bloomberg was angry that the July Aurora shooting didn't bring gun control into the presidential election, but Obama was too close to victory to want to jeopardize it with talk of gun control or confiscation, as Democrats only talk about that when they're safely in office. Given that Romney has been perpetually weak on the issue, he might well have gained a few points by going hard after gun control. All of which is water under the bridge and merely interesting background.

The pile of suckage that is the Florida bill contains features I haven't seen before. It makes my 44 year old Remington Nylon 66 an assault weapon, by virtue of its built-in 14 shot fixed magazine (lines 64-66). It further outlaws the manufacture in Florida, not just possession, of its broad definition of assault weapons. With Taurus, KelTec, and Colt, to mention a few, Florida has a pretty healthy firearms industry. Lines 131-134 outlaw manufacture unless the guns go to the military or the police. Of particular concern to me is that it often makes reference to things that can be "readily converted". Readily converted by whom? A 10-year old with a nail file or someone that knows their way around tools? I have a desktop milling machine; I can modify a lot of things.

The point to make in fighting these laws is not that the language is wrong, or that they'll outlaw virtually every modern weapon in the world; I think the backers view that as a feature, not a bug. The point to make is they'll make no difference. They're laws intended to make lawmakers feel good. When you get Feinstein-like crocodile tears about the dead bodies, the answer is that disarming people who aren't the problem will never change that. Chances are they'll try to distract you by saying "background checks!" or something like "surely you'll agree we need to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable?". Send them here. (H/T reader Dan, via private email). Until Minority Report happens and we get the ability to see the future, mass shootings will never be completely prevented. They may get stopped before the shooters get too many victims, as just happened recently in Oregon, or they may be more rare when we get rid of gun-free zones, but there's no way to prevent them all.

To you and I, these are flypaper laws, laws intended to trap completely innocent people and make their lives miserable. Make them spend money on lawyers and legal process. So the law allows you to keep your AR and three of your standard, 30 round capacity magazines: so what? Say you're driving home from the range with a couple of ARs and your 30 round magazines when you get rear-ended at a stop light. The officer responding to the accident sees the magazines and Bam!, you're under arrest. You have to hire the attorney, you have to go to court; you get the arrest record and you have to take the time off work. When you get to court it comes down to you telling the judge "I've had these magazines since long before the ban". The judge then asks the prosecutor, "What's your evidence to the contrary?", and when he says there is none you go home. Only you're about $10,000 lighter and a have a criminal charge on your record that doesn't go away. Maybe they seize your guns and won't return them, since you were arrested for "just cause" (the magazines are banned, and you did possess them, you just had an affirmative defense).

5 comments:

I must disagree:-- They're intended to make 50%+1 of the electorate feel good about lawmakers;-- They're intended to criminalize a large fraction of the populace and leave it in a state of fear of prosecution.

Votes plus accelerated atomization of the public is a pretty good recipe for onrushing tyranny.

While I can't disagree with your bullet points, I think liberals who aren't in the self-appointed Ruling Class want to pass laws because someone "has to do something". They never look at results, so they can't really care if the laws work. They just feel good because they did something.

I guess I think there's a difference between the idiot liberal voters who vote for the tyranny in name of doing something and a truly evil guy like Bloomberg.

Bloomie not only funds people all over the country to advance his agenda, he never follows any law he pushes. We need to be disarmed, but he can have dozens of shock troops, the fedayeen as they called the emperor's troops in Dune. Remember his ruling that drivers in NYC can't idle while they wait for someone to get out of a store, but then had his entire fleet of SUVs idling for 3 hours while he gave a speech? Laws are for stupid little people like us, not for him! He's the King!

My opinion is that this crap is just more SOP of the statists. The danger is the Incrementalism. Throw a MASSIVE amount of crap on the wall and see what sticks. I agree that they DO want it all, but they ARE intelligent enough to know that they won't get it; all at once at least. But they will GLADLY be willing to 'compromise' with you to only take a 'small' portion of your rights way.... this time.

"We'll be back for the rest later."

Even with 'friends' in Tally we need to keep after them to kill it ALL and not try to be seen by the stupid as being 'reasonable'.

Protest, show up at your legislators and congressman's public meetings. Be polite but firm and make no threats of any kind. Never forget who voted for these laws. Try to impeach, investigate their other activites that may be illegal or unethical (they are politicians so it is likely they did things that are wrong). Make your news media report on these "crimes". Get them charged on ethics charges. Try to get them impeached, recalled, brought up on ethics charges. Work to get their opponent elected in the next election. Give money to their opponents. Make sure they never get into politics ever again.

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About Me

Retired radio engineer, follower of Christ, RF designer, mentor. Radio ham, home shop machinist, lapidary, silversmith, roadie cyclist, learning to be a rifleman, and home defender, - a guy with too many interests to keep track of.

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